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Southern Cliff Perimeter, Airbase Pride Rock, Anax
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Dragon Snake Creek lay green and evil, like a Dark Side serpent slithering its way through the forested uplands. It had acquired its name because, in a burst of Stormtrooper creativity, it had lumbering dragon snakes lurking in its waters. During the day, many of the beasts could be seen sunning themselves atop the many sandbars along the winding waterway.
Normally, Dragon Snake Creek stood stagnant, its surface crusted with scum and fungus. If the two halves of the Force ever deemed to claim a geographical feature for a home, the shallow creek would be inhabited by a baleful Sith spirit.
Only two weeks before, the waterway had been held by Legionnaires from Earth who had misnamed it Lizard Creek. The only reason TX-0111 could think of for the moniker differences was that Solars were stoopa.
The local sun, Anax Alpha, was slowly going down in the east and a strong thunder storm was rolling into the area, threatening to inundate the Imperial positions around Pride Rock with rain. So naturally, their company had been chosen to dig firing pits at the lowest point of 1st Legion's positions, the bank of the creek itself.
There were signs from very early that morning of an impending attack on the cliff side flanks of Pride Rock. Recon TIEs and then TIE/sa bombers had reported two large transports landing in the nuked town of Reborn far to the south. Rumors had meandered through the ranks that both ships had been destroyed before they could touch down and then that only one transport had been set ablaze after unloading a full Confederate Armored Walker Legion. It did not require clever deduction to conclude that Earthling troops were probably moving up to attack somewhere south of Imperial lines, which placed TX-0111's unit as the forward shield wall of such a theoretical attack.
Officers were nervous and Intelligence reports kept coming down from the SigInt and CommScan units atop Pride Rock. The Legion had eyes in the forest. Locals who had stayed behind when the Empire had first evacuated Anax had now been joined by a special unit of Ewoks. The natural forest fighters had doggedly followed the new enemy arrivals while their human allies had radioed sighting reports back to the 1st Legion's base. An attack was coming. Probably tonight, TX-0111 feared, no later than dawn if he reckoned right.
TX-0111 hoped the Confederate attack came in on their left. That area was nearer to the grand slope that gradually led up to the peak of Pride Rock. The other three sides of the mountain were covered by much steeper, yet navigable cliff sides made up of boulder piles and massive stone monoliths. Near the slope the creek bed was dry and 1st Legion's defenses were lighter due to a reliance on their walkers parked further up the slope. Yet, there had been no detectable reconnaissance by the enemy. They could be attacking anywhere, even into the teeth of the Imperial perimeter.
Their section, two blasting teams, one with Sha-Zee as the E-WEB gunner and Hutt Slime as assistant, the other with TX-0111 as the gunner and TX-5104, Deon, as assistant, took up positions approximately two hundred meters down river from a large sand bar in the middle of the creek. Dragon Snake marked the end of the Imperial line. On their side, the north bank, was the extremity of the Stormtrooper's positions. A warren of rocky caves and piled boulders with a narrow strip of mud and sand for a creek bank. On the other, a no-beings-land of mowed grass, weeds, ferns and shrubs that had to be cut and burned routinely to prevent it from growing back. The Legion had only managed to cut away about a hundred meters back towards the forests from the opposing bank, giving them a small-sized blasting zone. A captured Earthling construction tractor had aided in the effort but had broken down that day and been abandoned on the far bank. The tractor was the only bit of cover until one reached the giant Wroshyr trees beyond.
The Solars would have to force the creek to their front, which was well defended by blaster men and several sections of E-WEB posts and Death Wire. Several heavy weapon sections dug into the bank on both sides of TX-0111s position, while reserve companies took up night time positions in the cliff face behind and above them.
The emplacement for Sha-Zee's E-WEB was excellently located to rake the field across from them. They dug in first, leaving Deon and TX-0111's heavy blaster standing on its tripod some twenty meters downstream. Above the ground, their position was protected by a single strand of Death Wire strung along the water's edge. They planned to emplace it that night, after dark and dinner rations were delivered. Their escorting Stormtroopers dug their own muddy blasting pits and filled sand bags to help.
They dug Sha-Zee's blasting pit wide and deep, some three meters square and two meters deep with a solid blasting step. Sweat streamed so steadily that their body gloves were sodden. They were unable to finish the pit before the local star started to set. When night fell, only the excavation was done, plus a dirt shelf where the E-WEB was placed. Bags filled with the dirt from the pit were piled around TX-0111 and Deon's weapon in a makeshift pill box. They would have to wait for the next day to roof over both positions with thick Wroshyr twigs.
TX-0111 felt exposed in the half-finished fortifications, unsure. If they got hit hard by enemy walkers and a horde of the enemy's best troopers, the Legionnaires, he and Deon would have to pick up their E-WEB and haul shebs up the cliff. Engineers were already covering the nearest ascending paths with rows of Death Wire, trapping the heavy weapon sections along the creek bank. The dark made sinister humps of the soft, red dirt they had excavated and on which they sat and ate their dinner.
Because they had never known real battle, its puffing trick of suddenness, they could not feel foreboding as they sat atop the soft mounds, concealing the soft coals of Gree Yos grown cigarras, softly smoking, softly talking. They watched the far bank through the glow of their NightSight goggles. They were uneasy only in that shiftiness that came each night and disappeared each dawn.
No one went to sleep. A steady drizzle that had come in with the night had turned into a steady downpour and thunder rumbled out of the west. Soon lightning flashes illuminated the darkness. This was enough to keep everyone up, unwilling to miss the stormy light show. Deon secured their shelter halves to protect the E-WEB and its 4T3 generator from the elements. TX-0111 kept the E-WEB's StarVision filter on the targeting system with the weapon trained on the far tree line. They had placed a pin in the elevation chamber to prevent the repeating blaster from depressing and allowing them to blast a steady even field of fire across the creek. Every one of their bolts should zip across at the height of a man's waist or chest unless TX-0111 raised the barrel for some reason.
Sometime around midnight, as the water in their blasting pits steadily rose, a new sound rose from the opposing forest. Dozens of Bordok horns drifted from the tops of the trees. Thunder claps threatened to drown out the warning but their furry players kept blowing the horns in the darkness.
"Look alert. Everyone keep your buckets down. Pick your targets." Sergeant Blue, CM-1072, scurried, bent at the waist, from blasting pit to makeshift pillbox. She was in charge of the detachment along the creek bank. TX-0111 felt slightly at ease to know the veteran was looking over them. She stopped at their weapon position. "Noob, Deon, you boys topped off on tibanna? Your generator hot?"
"Aye, Sarge." TX-0111 responded. "Could use a portable shield generator if you've got one handy."
CM-1072 chuckled. "Be wasted on you schuttas. Don't you know that kind of gear has to be reserved back on Palpatine Prime for War Minister Saria's akk pups?"
"Sounds about right." Both troopers grinned behind their helmets.
"Call out for ammo. I've got runners who can get some when you get low." With that Sergeant Blue disappeared into the darkness once again as she moved down the line to check on other sections.
The two troopers checked and rechecked their E-WEB again. From nearby they could hear Sha-Zee and Hutt Slime doing the same.
Suddenly, in the river, upstream to their left, there arose a blood-curtailing scream of rage. Thunder boomed all around. TX-0111 turned the muzzle of their weapon in the direction of the sound. "You hear that? Sounded like someone was calling for a Jedi."
"A Jedi? Is it one of our scouts? The only Jedi we've got with us is Lieutenant Pabs and last time I saw him he was attached to headquarters up top." TX-5104 said.
Something fell from the cliff near the shouting. A second later distant green and blue lights ignited on the sand bar there. They were followed by a red light, which swirled and merged with the previous, strange lights.
In the section to their left, the E-WEB manned by the blue-skinned Chiss gunner from Besh Company opened up. In the rocks above them came a fusillade of bolts. It was from Herf Company Stormtroopers, blasting away, also at the weird lights. More bolts hit the water. The lights disappeared in the darkness.
Shattering machine slugthrower fire and another pair of E-WEBs broke out to the left. As far down as the sand bar, perhaps. Then came another burst. Again. Another. The sharply individual report of an enemy BAR slugthrower punctuated the uproar. There followed the 'plop' of heavy mortars being launched behind them, then the crunching roar of their detonation all across Dragon Snake Creek. The conflagration was sweeping towards them from along the creek to their left, like a train of explosives.
Flares lit up the night sky, revealing thousands of heavily armored Earthlings emerging from the woods. The Legionnaires had come at last, and nothing the Empire had stood up against them so far had ever stopped them.
Veterans spoke of the eruption of battle. "All chaos broke loose." The first time they said it, it was truly, wonderfully descriptive. The millionth time it was said, it had been worn into meaninglessness. It had gone the way of all good phrasing. It had become cliché.
But within five seconds of that first E-WEB burst, of the appearance of the first inquisitive flare that suffused the battlefield in unnatural greenish light, within five seconds of this, all chaos broke loose.
The shock washed over them in an instant, and then they were blasting. The Stormtroopers were so disorganized they had no sense to disperse, clustered around that little sand-bagged fort as if they were born of it. Falsetto screeching rose directly opposite them and they were blasting away at it. TX-0111 concentrated on large groups of Earthlings heading directly for the creek bank, convinced the Confeds were preparing to swim the waterway. The screeching stopped as the loudest Solars drew the attention of the closest E-WEB.
TX-5104, who had no chance to blast his own weapon, blasted away with his blaster pistol next to TX-0111's ear. TX-0111 roared in anger back at his partner. "Echuta, Deon. You like to blow my head off. You Ashoth, shebhole."
TX -5104 laughed at him. He pushed the generator up to full charge. "C'mon, let her rip."
Their entire battalion opened fire with blasters and small turbolaser cannons loaded with laser splitter bolts from a hundred meters away as the Earthlings milled about in the killing field. Then as the bottleneck at the water's edge worsened, heavy artillery from the top of the cliff started raining down into the penned Legionnaires.
Shouting "Die, ET, die!" and "Fuck the Empress!" the Solars came in a dark green and tan blobbing mass. Like a bunch of nerfs coming down to drink at the creek, TX-0111 thought. A hurricane of blaster bolts swept through them like a broom. TX-0111 saw streams of bolts as bright as search lamps and E-WEB fire, like crimson blossoms, cut the exposed Earthlings down.
Rejecting the urge to fall back under such devastating fire, the Legionnaires redoubled their efforts to cover their crossing. Firing portable missile tubes at the cliff side and attempting to set up their mortar teams along the edge of the forest. The Stormtroopers hugged the ground in their shallow holes, crying, praying and cursing all at the same time. TX-0111 noticed the increasingly frequent cries of "Medic!"
Everyone was blasting. Every weapon was sounding voice, but this was no orchestra, no terrible symphony of death, as the decadent rear-echelon observers wrote. Here was cacophony. Here was dissonance. Here was wildness. Here was the absence of rhythm. The loss of limit. For every Stormtrooper blasted what, when and where they chose. Here was booming, sounding, shrieking, wailing, hissing, crashing, shaking, gibbering noise. Here was chaos.
Imperial bolts chewed the swarm of Legionnaires thundering out of the dark, heralded by heavy slugthrower fire and roaring war cries. Bright green and red lines of death swept across it in a riotous, stuttering roar, ricochets flaring and bouncing high.
TX-0111 could recognize each weapon by its sound. The plop of the outgoing proton mortars with the crunch of its fall, the clatter of the T-21 light repeating blasters and the faster rasp RT-97C heavy blaster rifles, the hammering of E-WEBs, the crash of AV-7 cannons, the crackling of E-11s, the wham of MZ-8 Pulse cannons and LX-4 perimeter mines. All of it blasting at near point-blank range into the charging enemy.
So it was that his ears prickled at strange new sounds. The lighter, single-snapping crack of an Earth slugthrower, the gargle of their extremely fast light machine slugthrowers and the dwindling hiccups of their light mortars.
To their left, a stream of red bolts arced over the enemy bank. "It's the Chiss's blaster."
Deon nodded. "He's blasting non-stop. Keep blasting burst-fire, Noob. They're going to track him down blasting like that."
They did.
The Legionnaires set up heavy machine slugthrowers behind the abandoned tractor on the other side of the creek and they killed the Chiss.
Their slugs slammed through the sandbags. They ate their way up the barrel of his blaster and ate their way into his heart. They killed him, killed the Chiss kid, the blue-skinned, anonymous kid from Palpatine Prime. He froze on the blasting stub with their lead in his heart. He was dead, but he killed more of them. He wasn't anonymous then. He wasn't just another Stormtrooper in that moment.
They wounded his assistant. They blinded him. But he fought on. The Legion gave him the Medal of Valor and the HoloNet made a Holodrama about him and the Battle of Dragon Snake Creek. Later, TX-0111 would figure the Empire wanted a hero fast, a live one; and the Chiss was dead.
The other guy was a hero, make no mistake about it. But TX-0111 felt sad the poor Chiss got nothing.
It was the first organized Confederate attack on Anax. The Imperial fighting man's first challenge to the Earth's Legionnaire Superman. The Supermen put slugs into the breast of the Chiss trooper, but he blasted three hundred more bolts into them.
How could the Legion ever forget the Chiss?
Troopers behind the boulders above the E-WEB set up their proton mortars and targeted the abandoned tractor that the Legionnaires had turned into a machine slugthrower position. They hit it dead on. A loud cheer went up from up and down the Imperial-held cliff side.
Despite constant blasting, small bands of Earth troopers crossed the creek and infiltrated the Stormtrooper positions. Breaking through the curtain of blaster fire, the Legionnaires threw grenades and attacked with bayonets. Dorn Company, which had been held in reserve with its Flame Troopers, counterattacked. They cleared the northern bank with fire.
Then a company-sized Confederate unit waded up and over a sand bar and attempted to come ashore on the section's right. The enemy troopers were spotted in the water, and E-WEB and thermal detonators shattered the attack on the water's edge.
Eight Legionnaires climbed the bank to their left and swarmed the blasting pits. The Stormtroopers there blasted six of them and the two survivors pressed the attack with bayonets. In the darkness one of them accidently stabbed the other in his back, and a Sand Trooper drove his blaster butt into the neck of the last one, knocking him back into the creek. The Sand Trooper jumped down upon him and held him under the water until he stopped moving.
"Noob-1." TX-5104 caught TX-0111's attention. "We better move. It looks like they've got the range. Maybe we ought to keep moving. They won't be able to get the range that way. And maybe they'll think we've got more blasters than we really have."
TX-0111 nodded. He unclamped the E-WEB and slipped it free of its socket in the tripod. TX-5104 laid back and pulled the tripod over him. TX-0111 laid back and supported the heavy blaster on his chest. They moved backwards, like backstroke swimmers. They tried to avoid making noise that might occur during one of the odd and suspenseful times of silence that befell the battle. Noise might attract slugs from the opposite bank, if anyone over there was listening.
The two heavy troopers never knew if there really was anyone that had spotted them. They heard noises and blasted at them. They felt shells explode on the Imperial side and heard enemy slugs, but they never could be sure of their point of origin.
But now there was no enemy fire in their small area while they squirmed to their new blasting position. They set up the E-WEB once more and resumed blasting, tripping out bursts at sounds of activity as before. The enemy on the opposing side had gone to ground and blasted from the tall grass while laying on their bellies. Thus, the two troopers passed the next hour, moving and blasting, moving and blasting.
To the left, towards the slope of Pride Rock, the remnants of the defeated Confederate attacking force was being annihilated. TX-0111 could see them running. Imperial mortars had got behind them. The artillery was walking fire in, that is dropping shells to the enemy's rear, then lobbing shells steadily closer to their own lines. The unfortunately trapped Legionnaires were forced to abandon cover after cover, being drawn inexorably toward the creek, where they were at last flushed out and destroyed.
Most of the Confederate officers were either dead on the far bank or dispirited by their shocking losses. The leaderless survivors milled around the cut field rather than withdrawing south into the forest. Unaccustomed to defeat, they did not know what to do next.
"Hold your blasts." Sergeant Blue's voice cut across the company channel. "3rd Battalion coming through."
TX-0111's 1st Battalion reorganized its positions on the northern bank while the 3rd Battalion brought its hammer down. Trudging unopposed down the slope a kilometer to their left, they crossed the shallowest, driest part of the creek and turned into the Legionnaires' exposed flank. Following several AT-STs they quickly started unloading into the trapped Earthlings. To 3rd Battalion's surprise, Confederate Legionnaires leaped up and counter-charged with bayonets. With a clash of plastoid and durasteel, the enemies closed in personal combat. Horrible cries rose as hot plasma tore through flesh and entrails.
As 3rd Battalion's walkers neared TX-0111's front a squad of Earthlings jumped up and began running towards the woods. Sergeant Blue called to all her heavy weapon sections. "Line 'em up and squeeze 'em off."
TX-0111 and the other E-WEB gunners did just that. They killed all of them within a few seconds and not one of them reached the trees.
The light walkers were supposed to stay ahead of 3rd Battalion's advance but got slowed down by the larger clumps of undergrowth in the field that concealed many surviving Legionnaires. The AT-STs pivoted, turned and spat sheets of red flames. The regrown blades of grass went down as if to a scythe, exposing Confederate snipers. Group after group was flushed out and blasted down by the walkers' laser-splitter bolts and thermal detonator launchers.
Legionnaires disabled one walker with a missile strike that blew off one of its legs. But when they attempted to get inside the cockpit and kill the crew, other walkers surrounded it and recovered their comrades. Then they turned and sprayed the enemy troopers with turbolaser fire. The Confederates were mowed down like Biteflies.
The walkers stomped over the enemy dead, their footpads becoming caked with blood and gore. They looked like meat grinders to TX-0111.
Hemmed in on three sides, the last Earthlings tried to break out, but TIEs from the airbase had finally arrived and herded them back with strafing runs. The Confederates had just one place left to go. They dashed into the creek and attempted to crouch and hide underneath the far bank. Their heads bobbed like corks in the sights of the E-WEBs across from them.
Stormtroopers came down from the cliffs above and kneeled next to TX-0111's position. Others casually lowered themselves to their bellies and took aim. Wherever the head of a wading Earthling was seen a small storm of waterspouts rose around him as the Imperial bolts smacked home. They were cut down like Naboo Ducks on a pond.
The company was ordered across the creek to help 3rd Battalion with the mop up.
It was here that the Stormtroopers learned to give no quarter. Among the piles of bolt-shredded Earthlings lived wounded Legionnaires still capable of killing and wounding. When they cried for help and field medics attempted to give aid, they detonated a grenade or blasted the caregiver attempting to help. Sometimes they waited until a Stormtrooper passed by and then they tried to stab them.
A medic was crawling through the battlefield nearby when he found a dying Legionnaire. As he pulled his first aid pack off of his back the Earthling snatched up a bayonet and stabbed him to death. TX-5104 opened up with his E-11 and filled the Earthling with a dozen new holes. He then removed his helmet and spat on the corpse. TX-0111 could see the rage boiling through his partner and felt the same.
A hundred meters to their right two Legionnaires jumped up carrying a wounded comrade and indicated they wanted to surrender. Sergeant Blue shouted "Cut 'em, down. Cut 'em down." The two Legionnaires had dropped their wounded man and were fumbling with grenades they had pulled from their armor. Sha-zee had already opened up with her E-WEB and obliterated them before they could detonate their explosives.
Casting aside any respect or compassion they might have previously possessed for a fallen enemy, the Stormtroopers made certain the Earthlings were dead by blasting them again and again with E-11s and blaster pistols. A shooting gallery line swept the battlefield thumping bolts into piles of bodies.
Stacks of corpses, dismembered and whole, laid everywhere in grotesque positions. Someone later told TX-0111 that they had counted just under four thousand of them, nearly two complete Confederate Battalions, before the Flame Troopers burned huge pyres of the enemy troopers. TX-0111 saw bodies torn apart by artillery shells, the bloody footprints of their walkers had run directly over six bodies, in the center of which was a broken machine slugthrower on a flattened tripod.
The stench the next morning was so powerful that it disturbed the Stormtroopers' sleep and attracted new visitors to the battlefield. Large Dragon Snakes snatched corpses from the bank and dragged them under water. Some of them had to be discouraged by blaster fire to keep their distance from nearby Stormtroopers.
Sad news also arrived with Anax Alpha's light. Patrols had discovered Lieutenant Cho'ree Pabs's body on a sand bar in the creek. TX-0111 figured it was just about in the same location as the mysterious lights that had preceded the battle. The heavy gunner never did learn what they thought had killed the Pho Ph'eahian as he couldn't imagine the Jedi would have fallen to a lucky, stray slug. Pabs had been a popular officer and almost an accepted Jedi mascot of the 1st Legion. His death hit many hard but was eventually dwarfed by the victory the Legion had achieved.
Later in the day, the entire section sat atop their E-WEB positions, morbidly watching the Dragon Snakes feast on the nearby sand bar. TX-0111 stared at the distant tree line and imagined how many Confederates were still out there.
Yesterday the Legionnaires seemed something akin to a super commando, a kind of mechanical juggernaut. But today they had beaten the Solars. The Earthlings no longer seemed super human. The Stormtroopers had faced the crucial task, stood up to it and won.
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Up Next: The Underground
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And with the calmness following the devastating fight along the banks of a distant creek, the epic of Tarkin's Fist quietly slips past two million words. Not too bad for a story that simply set out to answer the question "Why wasn't there a large fleet protecting the Death Star". If you've made it this far, thank you, there's certainly more to come. Those of you that have left reviews have my deepest gratitude and I've thoroughly enjoyed all the spontaneous, nerdy conversations we've had over Star Wars. May the Force be with all of you.